# curry favor

idiom

Source: https://englishreference.com/idiom/curry-favor
Updated: 2026-08-10

## Meaning

To seek to gain favor by flattery or attention.

## Examples

- He tries to curry favor with the boss by always agreeing.
- The new employee constantly brings coffee to the manager to curry favor before the performance review.
- The student volunteered for every extra task during the semester, hoping to curry favor with the professor before the final grades were posted.
- By offering excessive praise to the committee members, the politician hoped to curry favor and secure their support for his controversial new proposal.

## Origin

Originally from a French poem Roman de Fauvel, written in the early 1300s; Fauvel was a conniving stallion, and the play was a satire on the corruption of social life. The name Fauvel points to the French fauve (“chestnut, reddish-yellow, or fawn”), another sense of fauve meaning the class of wild animals whose coats are at least partly brown, and the medieval belief that a fallow horse was a symbol of deceit and dishonesty. The phrase curry Fauvel, then, referred to currying (“combing”) the horse, and was altered (as folk etymology) by later speakers to curry favor. (folk)

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.